Nursi’s School of Brilliance - Madrassah al-Zahrā
Zubair Hamid

Abstract
With the onset of modernization and industrialization, the whole world was set into the pace of inventions and discoveries. It has been a great challenge to integrate the revealed and modern sciences. Muslim scholars addressed and tried to create a possibility to enhance human intellectualism in their respective ages/ societies. Myriad of Muslim scholars and thinkers rejuvenated the process of amalgamation of sciences taking into consideration the need of time, and they came to the conclusion that without integration of revealed and modern sciences, human progress, and development is not possible. These scholars who proposed and professed the integration of revealed and modern sciences became subject to face the reaction from the traditional scholars. One such scholar was Bediuzzamān Said Nursi (1876- 1960), identifying the lacunas in the education system, proposed a Madrassah in 1896, which was about to give this process a practical shape in the form of Madrassah al-Zahra, where revealed and modern sciences would be taught side by side, and to play the role of Al-Azhar (Egypt) in Asia. His aim was to provide Muslim Ummah a guide to confront, and respond to, the contemporary challenges faced by them, besides reforming exclusively Madrassah education with modern approach. In this direction, keeping in view the significance of the subject, this paper will attempt to make analysis and assessment of Said Nursi’s proposed project vis-à-vis debate of integration of knowledge.

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